John Gruber is focusing on the wrong piece of the cloud+web vs cloud+software. It’s the ‘+’ that matters.

The ‘+’ that matters is that Google’s ‘+’ is web/http and Apple’s ‘+’ is objective c talking over some protocol that is inaccessible outside of Apple’s world. Yes, the user interface matters (a lot), but that is not the key differentiator. Over time, native and web will unify from a user experience perspective (of course standards will always lag innovation, but that is another story).

Traditionally, the term cloud has been associated with the web. Most large cloud implementations are all about the web and web protocols. Amazon (both books and AWS), Google, Flickr, etc all implemented their cloud services using open accessible web standards. They embraced and leveraged the spirit of the web by utilizing well known http protocols along with simple textual APIs. Call it the semantic web, web services, or web 2.0. In the end, it is about the ability of developers (with a wide skill gap) to mash together data and functional services to create completely new and interesting software. Think of it as the world wide middleware. The linkage between web 2.0 and these cloud based services…

So, Google got Gosling. Old news at this point, I know. I was wondering, though, if Google is doing this as part of a bigger plan. Granted, google is not as strategic as Apple, but they are seldom without intent. So, I thought I throw out some completely basis conjecture (the media does, why can’t I ).

Disclaimer: There are no facts after this point. It is all what if scenario / made up / completely unfounded speculation.

What ifs…
What if google had a significant investment in Java, but no license for it?
What if google knew that Java was an important differentiator for themselves?
What if google wanted to grow the Java community to their benefit?
What if google had the biggest names in the Java ecosystem (Gosling, Bloch, Bray, Haase, Russell, Norbye,…)?
What if google realized that Java was open source (GPL)?
What if google forked Java and called it something else (Gava)?
Would the Java community follow?

Oracle owns the rights to the Java brand and the Java TCK (certification). Java’s standards have been the driving force behind holding the community together. There is enormous power in the Java standards from an adoption perspective (think John Nash). Compatibility has been the hallmark of Java…